Seems like Kinko's is the best option for internet as long as I can't get it at my house. We went to an internet cafe that seemed really cheap, about 4 bucks for a half hour, but changed our minds when they charged us 6 bucks a piece for our Cokes.....

Here is an unfinished blog entry that I wrote on the plane:

Wow. It�fs -63 degrees outside. That is almost as cold as Winnipeg in January. I am 30 000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, about seven hours into a thirteen hour flight. I have reached the head-spinning-need-a-gravol stage of the flight. Japan Airlines is pretty good for entertainment; I have my own personal screen with about five movies playing, as well as five video games to play, but I am exhausted with cheap Hollywood movies, and I just found out that I am not good at Tetris anymore. Good time for a blog entry, thinks me

It has been a smooth trip so far. A couple things worked out so perfectly that I reminded myself to be even-minded the next time I want to jump into a �gwhy do things always go wrong�h kind of mindset. Today, things are really going right. My bag was heavy; the check-in lady thought too heavy. We weighed it, and it came in at 69.5 pounds, .5 pounds under the limit. I heard at the desk that the flight was very crowded. Indeed, it is, but no one showed up in the seat next to me, so I am thankful for the elbow room. But I still can�ft say I am enjoying the trip. I am tolerating the trip. I can�ft wait until someone invents a Star Trek like teleporter so they can just zap me back and forth between continents.

This is a big chapter change in my life. I have been coming back around to that theme all day today. I was feeling a sort of deep thanks to God for the intricate and unexpected way that he does things. In the last five years, we pretty much lost interest and passion for the institutional side of church. At times that would make me a little stressed as I gazed into the future, because since I was a teen I have been fairly single-minded about wanting to be a �gchurch planter�h. How strange then that my perception of the community of faith was so drastically altered, to the point that �gchurch planter�h had so changed in definition so as to become unrecognizable.

But here�fs the thing that makes me so thankful. I am on a plane heading off to a foreign land to be a missionary. Funny, that terminology carries meanings that I don�ft care to join in on, but essentially, that�fs what we are up to. We go to incarnate a message of the Love of God as a community of faith. Not really anything different than we were doing in the North End, but God knows how much I love cross-cultural settings, so this must be his kindness to me.

But with the foggy definitions of what it means to be a �gmissionary�h in these changing times comes a nervous uncertainty. I mean, I don�ft think my picture is on anybody�fs fridge. There is no church board to raise my funds and pay my way. That system has its advantages. But God has provided well for us in the absence of those things. I have friends, very deep friends, who I will stay connected with all over the world. We are praying for each other, covering each other.